THE LARGER IMPORT OF SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 455 



the other races of the world everything which they could contribute 

 worthy of our acceptance. 



Modern culture, therefore, stands as the product of all mental 

 endeavor for all time. It may, then, be safely assumed that the study 

 of that which has made civilization, and is civilization in its highest 

 form, and which is the result of all the training of all the world, must 

 itself furnish the best subject-matter for training that human ingenuity 

 can devise. 



Scientific education is aesthetic training. To purblind ignorance 

 the beauties of the world are dimly seem, but the glory of the uni- 

 verse is revealed by science. Classic poetry was the best literary prod- 

 uct of its time, because it was informed by the philosophy of its 

 time. Its philosophy was chiefly mythology, and the characters of an- 

 cient poetry are mythic heroes and gods. So the highest literature of 

 the new civilization must be informed by its highest philosophy ; it 

 must be instinct with that knowledge of the universe which is now the 

 glory of the scholars of the world. The splendors of the heavens and 

 the earth, as known to modern science, have put in eclipse the dull 

 glories of ancient mythology. 



Scientific education is a training in mental integrity. All along 

 the history of culture from savagery to modern civilization men have 

 imagined what ought to be, and then have tried to prove it true. This 

 is the very spirit of metaphysic philosophy. When the imagination is 

 not disciplined by unrelenting facts, it invents falsehood, and, when 

 error has thus been invented, the heavens and the earth are ransacked 

 for its proof. Most of the literature of the past is a vast assemblage 

 of arguments in support of error. In science nothing can be perma- 

 nently accepted but that which is true, and whatever is accepted as 

 true is challenged again and again. It is an axiom in science that no 

 truth can be so sacred that it may not be questioned. When that 

 which has been accepted as true has the least doubt thrown upon it, 

 scientific men at once re-examine the subject. No opinion is sacred. 

 " It ought to be " is never heard in scientific circles. " It seems to 

 be " and " we think it is " is the modest language of scientific literature. 



In science all apparently conflicting facts are marshaled, all doubts 

 are weighed, all sources of error are examined, and the most refined 

 determination is given with the " probable error." A guard is set upon 

 the bias of enthusiasm, the bias of previous statement, and the bias of 

 hoped-for discovery, that they may not lead astray. So, while scien- 

 tific research is a training in observation and reasoning, it is also a 

 training in integrity. 



Scientific training is an education in charity. Sympathy for the 

 suffering of others is at the basis of eleemosynary charity, and it has 

 grown with the development of social interdependence. The charity 

 that was born in the family in primitive times, with the growth of the 

 tribe into the nation, has developed into national charity, and finally, 



